


Damaged fires

by jakrster



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence - Post-Hogwarts, Charmione, F/M, Flashbacks, Friends With Benefits, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, M/M, Past Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:28:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26313409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jakrster/pseuds/jakrster
Summary: Hermione Granger knows by heart how to heal a wound with a Chinese Fireball or Occamy. She knows all the potions to be used in case of infection as well as the spells to stitch a cut.However, she finds herself completely helpless when it comes to healing her own wounds: instead of facing them, the Gryffindor buries them and avoids them. No book, no dictionary, no encyclopaedia tells you how to free yourself from a war trauma.Add to this a complicated relationship with a dragonologist and an ancient Death Eaters who tries to follow in Lord Voldemort's footsteps, and you get a pretty explosive mix.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger & Luna Lovegood & Pansy Parkinson & Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Charlie Weasley, Hermione Granger/Original Male Character(s), Hermione Granger/Theodore Nott, Lavender Brown/Ron Weasley, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Pansy Parkinson/Ron Weasley
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

Oh, I hope some day I'll make it out of here  
Even if it takes all night or a hundred years

_billie eilish, lovely_

_._

**_May_ ** **, 1998**

The scream the young woman had just uttered woke her up with a start. This dream. Always and constantly the same one. For three months it had been the same story. She kept seeing Bellatrix Lestranges's crazy face, perched above her, as she tortured her for answers she didn't have. Every night, the feeling that her body would give in to the pain she was inflicting on her body polluted her nightmares. Every night Hermione woke up feeling as if a white-hot iron had been dipped into the scar that would adorn her forearm forever.

How long would this image continue to haunt her? The brunette sat down in the little bed she occupied and curled up on herself to try to comfort herself and reduce the sobs that ran through her. She felt her muscles stiffen under the weight of the massive dose of adrenaline, fear and anxiety that had suddenly seized her.

All too often, she woke up in panic and tears. Even when she died, Bellatrix Lestranges threatened to drive her crazy.

"Hermione?" called a muffled voice through the closed door of her room. She heard three small knocks against it. "Are you all right?"

For several seconds, Hermione wondered whose voice it was – and by the same token, where she was.

Charlie. _Right_.

Seeing the young woman's lack of response, the dragonologist took the liberty of opening the door and slowly approached the bed repeating his question. Strangely, instead of reassuring her, the young man's intervention only doubled her sobs. Charlie's breathing seemed to be blocked and a moment later she felt the weight of the ginger pull up close to her and could finally distinguish him correctly in the darkness of the room. Carefully, he walked towards her and began to caress her back, awkwardly, over her sweat-soaked tank top. His hand, hesitant, began to move back and forth near Hermione's spine timidly. The young man vaguely remembered that his mother often made this kind of gesture when he had bad dreams as a child. 

To his surprise, Hermione approached the dragonologist and sank into his arms, clinging to him as if he were a lifeline. Charlie stiffened in the face of this close contact and stopped moving, caught off guard by the situation. Normally, she, too, would have been embarrassed by this sudden closeness: she knew him little, if at all, and he wasn't wearing a sweater. However, he was her only comfort and she was obviously not in her normal state. A few steps away from panic, Charlie took another pestilence against himself. Why had he agreed to bring her to Romania, again? In England, he could have given the task of reassuring the young woman to Ron, Harry or Ginny – in short, to anyone more comfortable in human relations than he was (which wasn't very difficult to find).

They had arrived in Romania during the day. Hermione had asked him the day before if she could accompany him for the rest of the summer. The young woman said she needed to be away from everything in order to rebuild her life. Her mind had to focus on something other than the end of the war. Charlie had agreed, in retrospect, at her request – mainly because he was afraid that she would cry if he refused.

The young man did not know much about Hermione. It was no exaggeration to say that he must have seen him no more than five times, always in the company of his family. Yet she had always made him feel like a force of nature. The young woman seemed to be as solid as rock. On the other hand, the day before, it had seemed to him that she had never seen a person as fragile as Hermione, and that had caught her off guard.

"Hermione, look at me." he posed, taken by a sudden inspiration.

Charlie put one of his hands on the young woman's shoulder to move her back a few millimeters. His other hand continued to caress Hermione's back, tirelessly, not daring to stop the movement.

The brunette raised her head and, accustomed to the half-light, hung her gaze on the face she was perceiving. Her legs became tangled with the dragonologist's legs as if it was unthinkable to leave Charlie. As if leaving him was a sign that the darkness was about to engulf her.

"We're going to breathe, together. Okay?" The ginger looked for an acquiescence that never came. "Inhale for three seconds, exhale for three seconds."

He continued to tell her how to breathe, patiently. After a few minutes, the hyperventilation gradually stopped. Still, she continued to stare at Charlie and listen to him dictate a breathing rhythm. It reassured her. The dragonologist's fingers, which were gripping harder on his bare shoulder, would probably leave her bruised, but she didn't care. She didn't care about that either. He was there. Someone was there for her. It was the first time anyone could see the extent of the damage the war had done to her soul. Hermione hid this panic, this fear that she had known by heart for so long that she didn't know how to make her leave it. Everybody was suffering from the aftermath of the war. She didn't want to bother her friends with her problems.

The young woman was startled when he placed an inch on the skin of her face to wipe away the tears running down her cheeks. Charlie backed away and stopped talking. After about thirty seconds, he brought his hand back together again, slowly, as if he wanted to tame a small wild animal. More confident in his ability to reassure Hermione, his hands came to take the young woman's face in a cup and he put his thumbs on her cheeks to erase all traces of her sobs. Then he pushed Hermione's brown hair back, full of sweat and sobs, behind her ears, gently.

Charlie felt, amazingly, good and _useful_. It was the first time he had ever felt this way about such a situation. Neither of them seemed to want to fill the silence or move, for fear of bursting that reassuring bubble that had formed around them.

Hermione guessed the dragonologist's curiosity about her condition and his desolation – his _pity_ , perhaps – for her. Charlie, however, remained silent. He waited. He didn't force things. He respected his rhythm. The young woman felt a wave of gratitude towards him overwhelm her.

They couldn't say how long they would stay like this. After a long time, Charlie stepped back and looked like he was about to leave. In a pure reflex, Hermione grabbed his hand and locked it in hers.

"Can you stay with me?" she asked, trying not to look like she was begging. "Please?"

The dragonologist hesitated. He could already hear his mother's voice screaming that this was not only inappropriate – it was a bad idea. _This is not how I raised you, Charlie Weasley!_

He sighed.

He was certainly going to have trouble going back to sleep anyway. However, it was the deep fear he detected in the tone of Hermione's voice that made him decide. He had to relax. It wasn't as if he was attracted to her or anything. _She was the same age as his little sister_. He nodded his head carefully several times and Hermione let go of him to push herself back into bed to make space for him. He lay awkwardly beside her.

Neither of them slept the rest of that night. They listened only to the soothing sound of each other's breathing and waiting for the dawn to rise.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Sunday_** , 17 July 2005

Her sleeves were quickly rolled up to the height of her elbows. Her bottle-green robe, like all other mediward, was stained with coffee and haemoglobin. Vestiges of a hellish day.

Hermione breathed a long, angry sigh and for the twenty-third time – without exaggeration – cast a murderous glance at third-year intern Gavin Sherman, who was trying to blend in with the wall of the room. The incompetent intern's error had been the last straw that had broken the vase of this long day. He had exhausted the rest of his patience and it had become a small pile of ashes.

He had only one thing to do. She had asked him, patiently, to monitor her patient's infection. Nothing complex, nothing degrading or anything that involved classifying organs or potions. In short, nothing like Smith or Parkinson's had fun passing on to him. Sherman even had the audacity to tell him that he would never take his eyes off Ernest Walsh's body with a big colgate smile.

The big sky blue eyes of Margaret, the medical secretary of their department, had distracted the attention of this effete jackass so much that at three o'clock the alteration had reached the patient's lungs without Hermione having been informed. When Hermione entered room C678, Ernest Walsh's room, she exploded with anger at this flagrant incompetence. Since then Sherman had been trying to disappear through the walls. 

Hermione Granger could be a real ray of sunshine. However, at that very moment she looked like a caffeine-starved dementor. It was frightening.

"Stop it, Granger." Pansy lamented, rolling his eyes heavily. "If you continue, he'll try to kill himself by kadavrating himself. Not that I give a damn... But he would be able to aim somewhere else and cause the death of a poor innocent man who was passing by, without asking anyone for anything."

The young woman stared at her colleague for a few seconds before looking at the fool again. She interrupted her wand movement over Walsh's body, which was in a state of artificial sleep. Pansy, on the other side of the notorious and imminent celebrity magizoologist in the Department of Wounds by Living and Magical Creatures of St. Mungo's hospital, was administering a second potion to cleanse the airways of the septuagenarian.

"Mr Sherman, come here." Hermione ordered sternly.

The intern froze for a few seconds, like a doe lost on a national highway, and slowly approached the two witches.

"Present the case to me." she asked curtly.

"...Sor-Sorry?" Sherman mumbled.

"Present the case to me." repeated Hermione, impassively.

He coughed nervously. Played with his hands. Looked at Pansy, who was biting the inside of his cheek to shut up.

"Mr. Ernest Walsh, seventy-two years old, admitted four days ago with a leg injury from an unknown creature - an experimental cross between a Runespoor and an Occamy." he said, crossing his arms behind his back. "The wound deteriorated yesterday due to an infection that seeped into the bloodstream. Echinacea, Flutterby bush root and essence of dittany were applied as an antibiotic."

"And?"

Sherman sighed miserably.

"And, the infection that this morning seemed to be under control... Was not. It reached the pancreas during the night and seeped into the respiratory tract."

"Why didn't we detect it?"

"There was no change in the colour of the saliva and Mr Walsh did not vomit bile. However, when he did mention nausea at breakfast, I should have noted it and reported it to you. As should the change in his breathing rate and his asthma attack that the monitoring spells have recorded."

"Because instead you were..."

"I was in the storage room kissing Miss Jones." mumbled Sherman.

The intern's eyes were now squinting to the floor and his cheeks had turned a crimson hue. Bet he wished he could have been unconscious like Walsh. Better yet, he would have gladly taken his place.

"I hope it was worth it." commented Pansy, who made no effort to hide his sarcasm. "I didn't expect an answer." She informed him, when he opened his mouth. "I have no desire to hear how much you know about Margaret Jones' tonsils."

He swallows noisily under the biting tone of the Slytherin.

"At least you have the intelligence to admit your incompetence in monitoring the vitals of an unconscious man." Hermione's voice clicked, without a hint of kindness or friendliness. "Are you able to tell me the steps to resolve your mistake?"

Sherman blinked his eyes, wrinkled his nose, mentally searched for the answer, came up against a black hole. He felt like curling up on himself so that Hermione Granger's murderous gaze could no longer find him. Had this woman ever been told that she looked a lot like Professor McGonagall? This was not very good for the young man's nerves. It really wasn't. 

He was paralysed by the fear of what was to follow.

"Unless, of course, you left your brain cells with Miss Jones in the storage room. Or perhaps they have been soaked in testosterone for so long that your genitals are apparently producing far too much. Are you sure you're a third-year medical student, Mr. Sherman? You should normally be able to tell me all the methods - spells and potions - to decrease the pressure of the infection on the lungs. And, what's more, you should be able to assist me. You will forgive me, Mr. Sherman, if I ask you to stay away from my patient in the future: I would be afraid that your idiocy would become contagious and that I would not be able to save him from it."

Sherman remained frozen, on the brink of shock.

It was worse than he had anticipated.

He opened his mouth. Then he closed it again. And he did the same thing over and over again, which made him look stupid.

As far back as he could remember, the twenty-one year old had never experienced such a strong urge to cry in the face of such humiliation. Except, perhaps, on the part of his grandfather who spent Christmas Eve listing the failures of his only grandson. But that was another story.

"I... May I go, Miss Granger?" he finally found the courage to stutter.

"Yes, Mr. Sherman." she nodded, in a harsh voice. "I want to see you in the morning so that you can tell me what you've read about lung infections and how to cure them. »

"Understood, Miss Granger."

Sherman did not wait for her to change her mind and left room C678 without asking for the rest. Pansy whistled as she inserted a needle into a new vial to fill her syringe with the pale yellow potion.

"Hey, you've eaten a lion today." she gloated.

The Slytherin giggled as her colleague and friend gave her a black look.

.

.

Charlie's suitcases had barely touched the Burrow's floor when he heard his name shouted from the kitchen. He closed his eyes, massaged his temples and sought the courage to face his mother - and the hellish evening that would surely follow his arrival in England.

"Charlie! "cried Mrs. Weasley, as she came through the kitchen door. "Oh, sweety!"

As expected, the dragonnier found himself trapped in the arms of his mother who had captured him against her. After thirty seconds, the young man's arms fell softly to either side of his body and wince at the length of his mother's embrace. At one point he tapped his mother's back awkwardly to try to make her understand that she could let him go.

Molly Weasley was obviously insensitive to this.

"Mummy, you can let go of me. I know you're worried, but that's no reason to suffocate me." Charlie complained after two minutes of this treatment.

His mother sighed long and hard and let him go and gave him a kiss on each cheek. Then, in a very contradictory way, she hit him on the arm.

The young man swallowed a comment that his mother had become bipolar and rubbed his shoulder with a grimace.

"Ugh! Can you explain to me what I did to deserve - "

"Criminal!" chanted his mother, cutting him off. " It should be criminal to spend so much time without contacting your mother, Charles Weasley! Shame on you! Your last letter was in February, FE-BRU-A-RY! You didn't even show up for Christmas! You sent that poor owl, poorly wrapped presents with a note of apology. That's not how I raised you! FEBRUARY, Charlie! I almost sent Bill to make sure you were alive."

Charlie rolled his eyes at this speech, which was intended to increase his sense of guilt dramatically.

"So, if I understand correctly, you would have taken it well that I wasn't here if I had taken the time to wrap the gifts properly? Remind me to go shopping for wrapping with Santa Clauses and trees on it, then."

The ginger had always had suicidal tendencies. (To choose to work on a dragon reserve, he must not have had a highly developed survival instinct anyway).

On the other hand, the annoying squint in his mother's eyes motivated him to work on this aspect of his personality.

"Respect your mother." she let go, putting her hands on her hips.

"It's called having a sense of repartee." said the dragonologist, who apparently reversed his decision to think about his lack of survival instinct.

"Fantastic. You could have left it in Romania for your dragons to eat it." Molly replied, crossing her arms over her chest, over her purple flowery dress.

"I inherited it from you, apparently." he slid, rolling his eyes.

"Unfortunately." his mother squeaked.

The fifty-year-old approached, without uncrossing her arms, and her gaze inspected her son's physique. Her nose wrinkled.

"You have two more scars." she said.

"Hun-un. Birth of baby dragons in February." said Charlie. "I was so busy I forgot to send you a letter afterwards. And, that's not true, I sent you a letter two months ago to tell you I was coming for two weeks for Fred and Luna's wedding."

"It's a good thing they're getting married." said Molly. "Three new burn marks." She added, taking her son's arm in her hands and pointing to a patch of lighter skin on his elbow. "And your letter sounded like, 'Hi Mom, I'm coming on July 17, I'm going to be here for a fortnight, see you soon.’ Are you pathologically incapable of giving me any news?"

He sighed, but did not take his arm from his mother's hands. 

"Mummy, you're exaggerating. The two burns are the result of a Chinese Fireball being transported into his natural environment."

"Do you still feel something in your nerve endings, at least?" his mother persisted, frowning.

"Mommy..." Charlie cracked. "I'm fine." He gently pushed her away. "I missed you too, but please give me a break for thirty seconds..."

Molly's lips suddenly smiled with delight as soon as he uttered that last sentence. She collected moments when her second son confessed that sometimes he missed his mother - or his family.

For a few years Molly had stopped trying to make him feel guilty at every opportunity she could by telling him that he didn't come home enough or by commenting on the number of letters she received from him. Charlie had been coming to the Burrow more often since the end of the war and this had eased his chaotic relationship with his mother. However, much to his displeasure, his mother had resumed the habit two years ago - since the accident that almost cost him his sight. This horrible accident had also coincided with the resumption of the dragonologist's habits: he no longer sent letters, he no longer came at Christmas or during the summer, he withdrew into himself.

Her mother's heart could not help but worry about her son. In addition to having chosen one of the most dangerous jobs on this Earth, Charlie seemed unable to maintain any kind of relationship. True, the dragonologist was the most independent and secretive of his sons... but still!

"Oh, honey! It's so good to see you!" said Molly, happy.

She hugged him again, briefly.

"I know, Mummy... Me too..." he grumbled, as his mother's attention was flooding in. "If you don't mind, I'm going to go and settle down in my room..."

"Of course, of course." she accepted, letting him go for good. "Your brothers and sister are coming to dinner." informed Molly.

Charlie nodded. He bent down slightly to grab his two suitcases on the floor. His mother turned to go back to the kitchen, but froze in her movement.

"Uh... I was wondering... Have you talked to Hermione again?" asked his mother, holding back a grimace.

His hands automatically contracted on the handle of the suitcases.

The ginger's heart suddenly froze in his rib cage. It stopped beating. It disintegrated. To resume a frantic rhythm of pulsation per second. At this rate, a heart attack would be imminent.

What exactly did he expect? He knew very well that this name was going to be spoken many times in the Burrow. He knew that she would be his future sister-in-law's bridesmaid. He knew very well that he would meet her several times. He would have to tame the organ, because he would die after these two weeks if it continued like that.

"No," he managed to articulate.

"Ah, ok." continued Molly. His mother tried to smile before delivering the final blow: "She'll be here tonight. Does that bother you?"

Charlie took a deep breath of air.

"No. Why would that bother me?" he asked, more abruptly than he had intended.

First lie since he arrived.

"For..." His mother was silent for exactly forty-three seconds. "For nothing. Of course not. I just thought you were in... That you stopped talking to each other. And, that that was why you weren't there at Christmas."

"I was working. That's all. The world doesn't revolve around Hermione." he says, shrugging his shoulders again and standing up.

Second lie. The third was only a partial: the world didn't revolve around Hermione, it was his.

Mrs Weasley swallowed all the comments that pricked her tongue. She was not blind. In fact, even the blind would have guessed - without braille - the reconciliation between Charlie and Hermione over the years. Molly was desperate to tell him that the poor girl looked as miserable as he did since he had made the decision to withdraw into himself. However, the subject was a thorny one.

"All right, all right... Good, then." Molly replied with a smile that sounded fake.

Charlie doddled his head and finally climbed the stairs of the house to go to his room on the first floor. As he entered the room, he sighed long and hard before he dropped his suitcases on the floor and slumped down on the single bed. His room was still as decorated as it had been when he was a teenager: posters of dragons and Quidditch players adorned the walls, the sheets were golden snitch and several dusty books were stored on a desk.

His eyes gazed at the white ceiling as he tried to put his head in order and calmly welcomed the heap of Hermione's memories and pictures. Hermione asleep next to him in that bed. Hermione sitting astride him, above him, laughing. Hermione naked in his sheets. Hermione dressed only in one of his shirts. Hermione reading a book. Hermione kissing him slowly.

No. Hermione was not her friend.

She was not his girlfriend. She wasn't his ex-girlfriend.

She was halfway between those three things.

And he, Charlie Weasley, definitely wanted more.

.

.

The young woman completed her medical note and filed it in Ernest Walsh's file. She glanced at the desk clock that the doctors shared and stretched her back painfully. 17h00. Perfect. She was right on schedule.

Hermione felt that this time she wouldn't be (so) late for one of the Weasley family dinners. Even though she wasn't part of the family, Molly and Arthur had always considered her as their second daughter - and she as her second parents. The brunette had and always will have her place in the Burrow.

She got up from her chair and went to put the backrest away in the folder and left the room to walk slowly towards the disappear area. The young woman made a diversion to check on Ernest Walsh once again. It was an undisputed fact: mediwizard was fueled by hours of service, medical mysteries and competition. They were all little monsters attracted by the smell of blood and the bewildering wounds. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just trying to lure you away from an interesting patient.

"Granger..." articulated Pansy's trailing voice behind her. "What are you doing here again? Are you thinking of setting up a camp bed in the department in case you can keep an eye on him?"

Hermione turned to her colleague. She looked at her with an amused smile and an arched eyebrow.

"No..." denied the brunette. "It's just that the infection hasn't stabilised yet. It worries me."

"We spent three hours this afternoon injecting him with potions over potions and spells over spells. We did everything we could." Pansy reasoned."We spent three hours this afternoon injecting him with potions over potions and spells over spells. We did everything we could," Pansy reasoned."Now go get some rest, read a book, take a bath, see that idiot Elias - or some other man, you know how I don't like him - or go eat Vietnamese food. I know how you like to eat Vietnamese."

Pansy's culture for the Muggle world had grown terribly after two years of living with Hermione during her studies.

"If only..." agonised Hermione, making a grimace. "I have a dinner." she announced and added: "At the Weasleys'."

The Slytherin bent her head to examine her friend.

"I understand that the thought of seeing Ronald Weasley in that horrible lime green jumper with the fuchsia stripes and navy blue, you know that awful thing he wore the last time he showed up at the department, makes you want to vomit, but... Usually you're happy to go and eat at the Burrow." Pansy's face lit up. "Oh, would you get me a slice of Mrs Weasley's chocolate chip?"

Hermione's desperate look worsened.

"Charlie is coming tonight." she explained, after several seconds of silence.

Just two years ago, the mere fact that the dragonologist crossed the border into England would have been considered a valid reason for absenteeism from work. It was purely ironic.

Pansy, who must have made the same observation, obviously burst out laughing. She instantly received a murderous look from her colleague. 

"That explains it." observed the Slytherin through her giggle.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

" Your psychological torture session with Sherman." explained Pansy. "I think he's about to throw himself in front of the Hogwarts Express tracks."

Hermione made a little grimace, ran a hand through her hair and felt a wave of guilt hit her. Pansy rolled his eyes with a sigh, before wrapping her arm around hers and forcing her down the corridor towards the transplant air.

"I forbid you to feel any guilt about this, Granger." she summoned her. "He deserved it. He deserves much worse. The brat doesn't have a mediwizard bone in his body. Remember what we looked like in the third grade? We were ready for anything to get in on the action. I even sabotaged one of your potions to help rebuild a liver."

"Yes, and I still don't forgive you." said Hermione.

"Oh, stop it, I'm adorable."

Her friend stopped to give her an evocative corner look.

And, although the end of puberty had been particularly beneficial for Pansy, who had lost her hound look for good, it was risky to define her as adorable - both physically and psychologically. Her refined facial features gave her a rather classic beauty. Her black hair was cut at the height of her chin and she had become accustomed to wearing darker make-up which accentuated the whiteness of her skin.

Hermione and Pansy had grown close during their medical studies - except for the nuclear crisis when the latter sabotaged the potion of the former. The young woman had learned, at her expense, that the Slytherin could be adorable in her own way: you threaten to slit your throat adorably if you had the audacity to come back from the Burrow without a slice of dessert for her, for example. Or threaten Charlie Weasley with murder when she tried to put your broken heart back together again.

Threats were Parkinson's favourite area. Whether it was for interns, Charlie Weasley, Ron Weasley or for any small event in everyday life, Pansy was threatening. With an adorable air that only regulars could perceive under the thick layers of contempt and condescension.

"You are not adorable." declined Hermione, who had started walking again.

"You love me anyway." said her former roommate.

"I've never said I don't."

"I hope so." said Pansy, sniffing with a falsely condescending air. "So, Charlie, what are you going to do about it? Stick a fork right in the middle of his forehead? I love it."

The Slytherin was one of the only ones who knew exactly the nature of her relationship with the dragonologist. Hermione would never have chosen her as her confidant: she would naturally have opted for Ginny. However, having been her roommate, Pansy had surprised some of the events that had unravelled the confidences.

Finding Charlie Weasley, half-dressed, as soon as he woke up, crossing the corridor to go to the bathroom was more than equivocal.

The two young women entered the lift that linked the entire hospital and pressed the button on the first floor where the staff and user disappear areas were located.

"No murder is planned, Pansy."

"It's a pity. " she remarked. 

"I'm bringing Elias. He should have the decency to stay away from me."

"Boo-hoo." lamented the Slytherin. "Do you see him again?"

"Don't you think it's strange that you can't like any of my boyfriend?"

"This has been the case since 1996." confirmed his colleague. "I still can't believe you dated Ronald Weasley. My retina burns at the very thought of imagining him in those serene yellow sweatpants he wore to run around the Quidditch field that year."

"You know, the way you remember everything Ron wears is suspicious."

"How can I forget the filthy clothes he's wearing? It's imprinted in my brain and haunts all my nightmares. Sometimes I dream that I'm being tortured and forced to wear them."

"You should have done acting instead of medicine."

"Since I left my parents' mansion, I have no reason to want to continue disappointing them."

Hermione shook her head, discouraged.

The lift doors opened onto a crowded corridor. The first floor included admission, disppear and appear areas, emergency and cafeteria. They spent the next few moments dodging stretchers, injured users, attendants and staff and making their way to their destination.

"Note, if your goal is to make sure that Charlie doesn't approach you, you should bring me." Pansy laughed.

"So that you can spend the evening bickering with Ron, Lavender implodes at the end of the table and Molly wants to gut you and Draco? No thanks." she declines.

"It's not my fault that Lav-Lav can't stand bisexual women." sniffed her former roommate.

"I would have said it's not your fault that you've been pathologically in love with Ron for centuries and that he's married to Lavender. No one blames you for being bisexual. Except, maybe, your parents."

Pansy looked disgusted as they reached the disappear area.

"I'm going to ignore the filthy things that come out of your mouth." Pansy said calmly.

Hermione raised her hands, looking innocent.

"Yes, Your Majesty." she nodded. "I'll bring you a piece of cake? »

"And preferably a picture of Charlie with a fork stuck in his forehead."

The Gryffindor shook his head falsely discouraged. She made a vague gesture of goodbye before disappearing.

.

.

Hermione reappeared in her flat and almost ran over Crookshanks. The bigger he got, the more his survival instinct seemed to diminish. Unless, of course, throwing himself through her legs was a new tactic to remind his mistress to feed him. The young woman, in a hurry, grumbled lightly to his attention, mentioning that his feeding time was in five hours.

She sighed as she sent her sneakers waltzing into the cupboard of her chair and took a quick step towards the shower to get rid of the smell of St. Mungo's hospital, which seemed to stick to her skin. Despite the heat wave that dominated England's climate, Hermione found some comfort in taking a hot shower that loosened every muscle that had been tense all day.

Unsurprisingly, her thoughts turned to her relationship (or lack thereof) with Charlie Weasley.

He was simple on the day she saw him only as the Ron and Ginny's brother she didn't know much about.

The fact that he agreed to take her with him to Romania seven years ago, when their relationship was decided to be mere acquaintances, had, of course, made several changes. First of all, a friendship had developed between them. Each had been able to tame the other.

It was easy to like Charlie.

Charlie and his quiet strength. Charlie who was not afraid of silence. Charlie who knew how to calm every one of his anxieties. Charlie and his special sense of humour. Charlie who wasn't afraid of the emotions that lurked in Hermione's head and belly. Charlie and his gestures covered with a tenderness of which he was barely aware. Charlie and the way he looked at you as if you were the most important person on earth. Charlie and his magnetism.

The young woman had loved this friendship - quiet, gentle, complex - as much as she had hated that her body was so attracted to his. A magnet that rubs too much against a piece of metal.

The night before she left, they had slept together. Three times. It was far from being an accident. Anyway, it had been hanging over their heads all summer. They had made the decision - in hindsight, she had made the decision - that it was only for one night. A one-night stand, full stop. Yet, by the next Christmas, she found herself in Charlie's bed after only four days together.

Hermione had decided to set some rules. A friendship with benefits. And that was it. They were adults after all, weren't they? All those stories were predictable. Why did she get into it? It was a foregone conclusion. 

And, the result of this deal was far from glorious.

This game, between them, _this comedy_ , had lasted five years. Five long years in which Hermione had, in spite of everything, sought love on her own side. Really. And, in reality, she had mostly accumulated catastrophic love stories - which were interspersed with quasi-planned breaks with the dragonologist's homecoming. The toads that she thought she could turn into a prince passed the most careful examination, but failed to achieve the pass mark. She compared them, without really realising it, with her ideal that had gradually taken on the features of Charlie Weasley. Then the merry-go-round came to an abrupt halt when the ginger had confronted her about her feelings towards him. Unsurprisingly, the young woman had preferred to flee rather than confess to him that she was in love with him in order to try to save her pride.Because it was a game, wasn't it? It was just a game. Hermione had been tricked; she had not followed the rules she herself had imposed. Who knows why she took the first portkey over the holidays for Romania this year! _WHY?_ Pansy couldn't understand it when she patiently consoled her. 

The young woman had sworn to herself that there would be no more mistakes like that. She wanted a serious relationship. Where there was room for evolution. Something Charlie had never been able to offer her... And, in fact, something she had never asked for.

Then, now she was with Elias.

.

.

Hermione finished preparing quickly - or so she tried. The young woman went through her wardrobe and finally chose a rather simple black summer dress that fell at her ankles.

Then she hesitated between sandals and pointed toe pumps. Choose the pumps. Changed to sandals.

She growled at her tangled mop more than ever. She gave up tidying it up and gathered it into a high bun.

Her eyes fixed on her make-up. She decided to put a discreet lipstick on her lips - only because she knew Charlie would like it. She stopped in the middle of her lower lip. Pesta against herself. Resolved to finish applying the matt colour to her lips. Observed herself for a few seconds. Grabbed her mascara with her fingertips and slid the brush over her lashes.

When she was satisfied with the result, she disappeared to Elias. Who she should have been at for... Forty-five minutes ago.

.

.

The financial analyst lived in a luxurious flat overlooking one of the streets of the Diagon Alley, a few minutes walk from Gringotts, where he worked. In this way, the young woman did not have to worry about appearing in front of the door - she did not need to pay as much attention as in the Muggle neighbourhood where her own flat was located.

She took a long breath, trying to get rid of the anxiety that was running through her, but failed miserably. Her belly was slowly twisting to form nooses at the very thought of seeing Charlie again. Each knot tightened as the moment of seeing him approached. She felt as if a vice was closing in on her to hold her captive in the grip of that stupid ginger.

Hermione shook her head and ran her sweaty hands over her dress before banging three separate blows against Elias's door. He came to open it, about thirty seconds later, with a smirk on his face. The one he always had when Hermione was next to him. A smile that grew as his gaze slid over her.

"It was worth the wait." he appreciated. "You are beautiful."

Hermione's cheekbones turned red. She approached to embrace his waist and quickly placed a kiss on the corner of the young man's lips.

"Thank you very much. You're not bad yourself." she said, her fingers passing over the roots of Elias's ebony black hair.

The white shirt he had put on highlighted his tanned skin and emphasised his honey-coloured eyes.

He gave her an equivocal look. The analyst's hands rested on the young woman's waist and clasped, almost possessively.

"Are you sure we have to go to this dinner," he asked, making a funny little pout. "We're already late anyway."

He kissed Hermione's lips again. 

"It will be short." she promised. "We'll talk a little, we'll eat... I promise at ten o'clock, maximum, we're gone."

The young woman was trying harder to convince herself of the merits of attending the damn dinner. She was trying to convince herself that introducing Elias, at the very moment Charlie decided to arrive in Britain, to his near-adoptive family was pure coincidence - a distant alignment of stars that had nothing to do with the threat to his psychological integrity to see the dragonologist again.

Yes, that was it. A coincidence.

"No problem, baby. Just kidding, you know."

"Yes, of course." Hermione grinned, scratching her neck nervously. "I'm... I'm sorry, I'm a bit on edge." _Because the guy I've been in love with for the last seven years is going to be here tonight. You know, the guy I haven't told you about. But, hey, relax. Everything's going to be fine._ "I've had a hard day."

"No problem. "repeated Elias with a colgate smile. "Are you ready?"

No.

No, not at all.

"Of course." And perhaps she would realise that she had spent the whole day biting her nails for nothing when she realised that Charlie Weasley was doing her as good as a green plant. "Let's go?"

They started from the threshold of Elias' flat in a loud 'plop'.

Everything was going to be all right.


End file.
